


Unplugged

by Cephy



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Modification, Cyberpunk, First Meetings, Gen, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-06
Updated: 2006-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephy/pseuds/Cephy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanzo meets Goku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unplugged

Sanzo found Goku sitting beneath an overhang of steel, in the dim basement of a building that should long since have been burned to the ground.

He'd come there looking for an explanation, for someone to blame, and hopefully for an end to his annoyance. Because every word he'd typed for the last six months had been tagged with an echo of someone else's 'voice', a hiss of static in the background that definitely should not have been there. And no matter how many scans he ran, how he reformatted and reconfigured, it wouldn't go away. Finally he'd taken the direct route and traced the interference back to--

Here. To a scrawny, half-dead kid with bare wires hanging from his forehead and his eyes gone wide and empty.

Not quite what he'd expected.

The kid was plugged into a port on the wall, not responsive to Sanzo's words or movement-- abandoned or ignored for so long that he'd lost any awareness of the world beyond the wires. It was obviously not his choice to be there, from the remains of restraints around his wrists, from the too-prominent scars around the port on his forehead. But for what purpose he'd been left was anyone's guess.

Sanzo crouched and studied the port for a moment, distantly curious-- he'd heard of them before but never actually seen one, rare as they were. Not nearly as impressive as he'd thought it might be: just a little hole, dull silver and gold, with nothing to indicate the delicate network of wires and information running between it and the brain it nestled against.

Sanzo studied it-- then reached up, grabbed the wire and pulled it out. The bare metal snapped static in his hand, tingling his fingers, but he ignored it.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, and Sanzo was about to stand up and leave-- his problem was solved, anyway, since the connection was broken-- but then those sightless eyes blinked, dazed and slow. The kid didn't seem to acknowledge his surroundings, and it was obvious that he'd been out of the real world for so long that his limbs were wasted and stiff. But after a few moments of aimless shifting and slow awakening, he looked up at Sanzo, squinting as if against some glare.

Though Sanzo knew that he should turn and leave, knew that he'd accomplished what he'd come to do, what he ended up doing was tossing the kid a bottle of water from his own pack, looking away until the kid's legs stop shaking and hold him up properly again. He stood, shifting impatiently, while the kid went through the futile motions of trying to remember, as he touched tentative, shocked fingers to his forehead.

And when Sanzo did leave, it was with a new shadow huddled against his back, nearly treading on his heels.


End file.
